


The Blood of the Covenant

by JudetheInvincible



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Aromantic Leon, Druids, Gen, I kind of fudged Leon's family but there's so little in the show does it really matter?, Leon finds his dad, Leon-centric, Lesbian Gwen, Memory Magic, Merlin and Leon are good friends, Might have a sequel depending on reception, Out of Body Experiences, Post 3x13, Vulcan Mind Meld, Who Knows?, that's how magic works right
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-04 01:10:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14581632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JudetheInvincible/pseuds/JudetheInvincible
Summary: After a disastrous patrol, Leon wakes up to a startling revelation.  And they only keep popping up.This was written because, about a year and a half ago, my mom was watching Merlin with me and asked if Iseldir was Leon's dad.  Not sure where she got that from, but it made for an interesting story!





	The Blood of the Covenant

"There!"

A small group of druids wove through the trees, picking their way deftly through the scattered red-clad corpses of Camelot knights. Iseldir reached the one he was looking for and sighed, relieved. That curly hair, he knew it as well as his own.

"Leon," he breathed. He raised his voice desperately. "Quickly! His life leaves him."

His druids hauled the boy up and carried him to their cave. Iseldir barely resisted fussing over him the whole way back. Here he was, back where he belonged. But he was half dead, if not even farther gone.

They laid him carefully in a rocky alcove, and Iseldir hurried to him with the Cup of Life. He poured the water into his mouth. He knew it would heal Leon, but he still quivered in fear that his... his patient might not return to life. Or that he would not find himself standing there to see him open his eyes.

The wounds faded. Iseldir smiled.

"Welcome back."

––––––––

When Leon opened his eyes, they were bleary as if he had been sleeping. But he hadn't. He knew he hadn't. As near as he could remember, he had been mortally wounded. He had expected to be dead. In fact, he was fairly sure he had already died.

Regardless, he certainly didn't feel dead. He didn't even feel injured. He felt better than he ever had.

A hazy shape made of grays came into view.

"Welcome back," said the monochromatic mass.

Leon scrambled backward and hit his head.

"Whoa, whoa, careful there." He squinted and recognized the shape as a man with a hood covering his head and thick, grey hair peeked out from beneath it.

"Who ARE you?" he demanded, trying to hide how frightened he was. The man's smile, gentle though it was, faded sadly.

"I am Iseldir." He pulled back his hood and his curly hair went all over the place. "I knew your mother."

Leon looked at him, and then around at the cave he had awoken in. He hummed nervously, trying to wrap his brain around everything. He wrinkled his forehead and rubbed his temples. This didn't align with anything he'd been told, by his mother or by anyone else.

"My mother didn't know any druids," he said, pressing his back against the rock wall. "She was a noblewoman of Camelot. She knew the laws as well as anyone."

"We met before the Purge, long before you were born." For some reason, the druid looked sympathetic, perhaps. Or it was possible that he was grieving. Grieving the thousands of people who had lost their lives, or maybe, if what he was saying was true, the druid was grieving for Lady Gaunnes.

"How?"

"I was sent by my father to seek a mutually beneficial agreement over trade with her father. I don't suppose you ever met him?" Leon shook his head, glancing at the druid every few seconds. "Ah. Well, your mother and I spoke after each meal, and soon we would take walks together in her father's gardens. Goddess, I miss it." Iseldir sighed. Leon bit his lip nervously. He'd barely heard anything about his parents; his father had died when he was barely two years old, and while his mother had been quite content to regale him with tales of the Old Religion and the ancient gods, she had never said a word about her youth.

"Did you know my father too, then?" He wrapped his arms around his knees like a child waiting for a story. The druid looked down at his hands.

"Leon, my boy," he began softly.

"Please don't call me that," Leon said, cutting him off. "Only my mother ever called me that."

"What about your father?" Iseldir asked.

"I never knew my father," Leon snapped. He had the feeling there was something that he wasn't getting, but really, was it too hard not to speak in riddles?

"That's not what I mean, Leon. I know your father, yes, because I am your father." Leon opened his mouth to say something, perhaps to refute it, perhaps to simply react, not even he was sure, but Iseldir hurried on. "I'm sure that your mother told you very little about me. After the beginning of the Purge, she couldn't risk your safety. Or hers, for that matter. Uther would have killed her without a second thought, and you as well, if he thought you had anything to do with magic."

Leon shook his head vehemently, grasping for anything to say.

"My father died in battle when I was young," was all he could think of.

"And how old are you, Leon?" Iseldir was almost smirking, although his face still seemed neutral. Despite that, Leon still felt that he seemed rather smug.

"Twenty-seven, why?" Leon bit out angrily.

"You were born two years before the Purge," the man, maybe his father, answered. "And your father died when?"

"When I was two years old, give or take a couple months."

He tried not to think about the coincidence of it, or how Iseldir would have surely fled a public place he had taken up residence in if he might survive. He had heard stories of grand escapes made by sorcerers and their families. He knew of the lengths that some would go to save their own skins. He'd seen it firsthand.

"When you were born, Leon, it was one of the happiest days of my life, second only to the day I married your mother." He sighed again. Leon got the sense he sighed a lot more than most people. "She was gorgeous. Maybe not to her people, but she was to me. She let me name you, you know. I shortened the name of the kingdom that my mother was from, and I gave it to you. I had hoped that, if nothing else, it would be something to remember me by. I knew that I would have to go back to my people someday. I just didn't know it would have to be so soon."

"And I have to get back to my king," Leon deflected. He pushed his way away from the wall and avoided the man who claimed to be his father.

"Alright," Iseldir conceded. "But please, Leon, please meet me later. I know a safe place to meet you. Please let me see you again."

Leon didn't respond and patted his belt to check if his sword was still in place, which it wasn't. He sighed.

"Fine. Where do you want to meet me?"

––––––

Leon snuck carefully through the hallways of the citadel. He didn't know what possessed him to want and meet Iseldir, but he was going all the same. Normally he would have reported the druid to the king, like he was supposed to, but he couldn't bring himself to do the same with Iseldir. Even if the man truly wasn't his father, he knew more about his parents than he did.

He turned the corner to the grate, something which he had been considering his "egress" for no reason other than it was the correct word as well as a very pretty one, and nearly ran into Merlin.

"Sir Leon!"

"Merlin!"

"What are you doing out here at night?" they asked in unison.

"Just going out for a walk," they chorused again.

"Alright," Merlin said, grinning. Leon knew Merlin well enough to recognize that he was doing some very quick thinking. "Sorry for almost bumping into you. Have a nice walk!"

He started to scurry off, but halted and swiveled more gracefully than Leon had ever known him to be when Leon grabbed at his bicep.

"Merlin, I'd..." He opened and closed his mouth like a dying fish before settling on what to say. "I'd appreciate some company. Would you mind coming with me?"

"I, uh," Merlin shrugged and smiled nervously, like he did when he was trying to avoid admitting that he hadn't yet cleaned Arthur's socks. "Oh, sure, why not."

They slipped down the hallway that Merlin had come from, and turned again a few more times before they reached the grate.

"Ah, Leon?"

"Yes, Merlin?"

"Why are you trying to leave the castle in the dead of night?" Merlin crouched next to Leon as he tried to pick the outside lock. "Here, let me do that."

Leon pinched his lips together debated telling the servant outright. Granted, he would probably find out once they met up with Iseldir, but it felt different to tell him than to let him find out on his own.

"You recall what I said earlier about how the druids healed me?"

"With the Cup of Life, yes."

"I didn't tell you, or the court, everything that happened." Leon flicked his gaze over to Merlin's face apprehensively. His companion showed so signs of surprise and Leon swallowed. His heart was beating far faster than it did on the battlefield. "The druid that healed me told me that he knew my mother. And then he–"

Merlin rested his hand on Leon's shoulder in an attempt to steady him. Leon was shaking more violently than he had in his first fight and compared himself rather unfavorably to a rabbit.

"Are you alright? Did he threaten you?" 

Leon shook his head.

"He said that he's my father." Leon felt Merlin rock back as if struck. He knew that Merlin himself had no father, but neither of them had discussed their families much. All that Leon had told Merlin, or anyone for that matter, about his family was that his father had died when he was young.

"Are you going to meet him now?" asked Merlin. Leon found himself nodding. He was rather glad that Merlin had asked a yes-or-no question, given that his mouth had dried out completely. "And you want me to come with you. Alright."

The lock clicked open and they crept through the grate into the woods. Merlin bowed teasingly and gestured for Leon to lead the way. He snorted in reply and wove his way, almost soundlessly, through the trees. He could just barely hear Merlin at his back. He wondered why he had asked him to come along.

Really, it was probably because Merlin was the only person he had come across. That said, he wouldn't have asked a random kitchen maid to accompany him to a meeting with someone who claimed to be his father. But he'd never really talked much with Merlin. They joked together every once in a while and they would exchange pleasantries in passing, but they weren't at all close. They just happened to work in the same castle, and their occupations happened to lead them to places where they ran into each other. The same could have been said for almost every person in the castle.

Merlin, however, exuded an air of friendliness and trustworthiness. As far as Leon could tell, this was mostly because he was friendly and trusted everyone, regardless of whether or not they treated him the same way. He suspected that it got the naive servant into more trouble than anyone knew.

Leon stopped dead next to an old oak tree. He felt Merlin stabilize himself using Leon's back.

Just ahead, facing away from him, was a man in brown, hooded robes. Leon grabbed Merlin's shoulder. They stepped quietly into the clearing.

"Iseldir," Leon called, a bit uncertainly. The man in the hood whipped around and was, to Leon's relief, exactly who he thought he was.

"Leon, my boy." The man came closer, and Leon kept Merlin behind him, carefully hiding him from sight. It didn't matter if they were close or not; a servant infamous in the castle for his clumsiness would be in huge danger in the presence of a druid.

"I told you last time that I'd rather you didn't call me that," he replied icily. The druid nodded and stopped just short of hugging him. "I'm here now. What did you want to talk about?"

Iseldir sighed. Leon debated whether being near him would pass on his melancholy. He hoped it didn't; now that he knew how annoying it was to hear someone sigh every other sentence, he never wanted to subject someone else to that.

"Sit with me," ordered the druid. It wasn't the sort of order that Uther gave, but it didn't leave any room for objections. Leon sat. "I wanted to tell you more about myself."

"With all due respect, I'm not sure I care."

"I beg your pardon?" Iseldir leaned closer. He didn't seem dangerous, not yet at least, but it made Leon feel rather ill at ease.

"You've told me that you're my father. Sure. But anyone can say that, as long as they know a bit more about my mother than I do and know when my father died. Neither subject is exactly secret, just a bit difficult to find." He had lost track of Merlin at some point, but he supposed that he had just stayed out of the clearing. "Please believe me when I say that I would be ecstatic to meet my father or to see my mother again. But I can't take your word for this. I don't know you. I don't know what to think of you. All that I know is that you healed me. I've listened to what you've said, but I only have your word on that. And I don't know how much your word is worth."

Iseldir's face was as impassive as ever, but if Leon was to guess from experience, he would say that he was looking at someone whose anger was boiling just under his skin.

"With your permission, I'll give you my memories of your mother and the years I spent with her." His hands, previously clasped tightly, released each other. He held them out in front of him as if he was holding some sort of globe. Rather than anything solid, however, it looked like a shimmering, shifting mass with a blurry image that looked like...

A garden.

His mother's garden.

"Okay," he said softly. "Please, I want to see that."

Iseldir, his maybe-maybe-not father, placed his hands on either side of his head and muttered something that Leon didn't recognize.

His vision flashed white and he lost all feeling in his body.

When his vision cleared, he saw a sweeping yard of green grass and carefully separated squares of flowers. Just to his left was where the apple tree he climbed as a child was supposed to be. There was a small circle of dirt, but no tree. He missed that tree.

He still couldn't really feel anything. Based on what he was seeing, he was probably sitting on the stone bench. But if memory served, that bench was one of the most uncomfortable things to sit on in the world; weathering and abuse made the stone dig into whatever rested on it. He couldn't feel that, though. The only thing he could feel was his heart, pounding in his chest for no reason.

Iseldir's voice floated through his head, although it sounded a great deal younger and a great deal more excited than Leon had ever heard it.

'Okay, calm down, calm down,' said the druid's voice. 'It's just a walk. It's fine.'

It wasn't his heart, now that Leon thought about it. He could feel his heart, although it was... Quieter? It wasn't there in the same strength as Iseldir's in any case. He supposed it was because he was in Iseldir's memories and therefore everything would be from his point of view. The skin didn't quite fit right on him. He felt too short, his hands were too small, and there wasn't nearly as much weight around his shoulders as he had normally.

His field of vision changed to look around and then tilted in a couple different directions. Leon wanted to throw up. He had never been very good on boats. This was, without a doubt, far worse.

He caught a glimpse of a woman's shoes and a pale blue skirt.

"Iseldir?" Both Leon's heart and that of the body he was seeing through stopped dead. That was his mother's voice, no doubt about it. He hadn't heard it in thirteen years. He had barely even remembered it. He didn't want to wonder if that made him a bad son. He was fairly sure that the answer was yes. "Iseldir, I'm here."

"Yes, hello Lady Guannes!" The druid's voice barely kept from cracking. How old was he? "Sorry you couldn't see me; I was just waiting for you on this bench."

"No harm done, Iseldir. And please, it's Simona." His mother had always been dignified around the court, but Leon had known her to be something of a jokester outside of the public eye. She must not have known Iseldir well if she was treating him like how he had seen her talk to slimy nobles seeking out her land.

"Of course, of course, sorry."

Lurking around in a body that was walking when one wasn't in control of it could be described as nothing short of terrifying. It was even worse than when Iseldir had been glancing around, especially given that sometimes he would trip and fall forward. When Leon tripped in the comfort of his own body, he had a bit of warning before falling on his face because he would feel the inconsistency of his steps. When Leon got dragged along for the ride in the memories of a young druid, he had none of the same input, which left him quite shocked when his host started to pitch forwards.

His mother and the strange boy, who Leon really couldn't claim to know, talked about the druids society and how it interacted with the other kingdoms scattered around. When they ran out of things to talk about regarding politics, they turned to gossip, and then to their respective childhoods.

"It's been great here," Simona said offhandedly. "I've got no surviving brothers or sisters, as I'm sure you've seen, so I have a lot more opportunities to learn things."

"My father practically buries me in books," Iseldir moped. Leon could hardly believe that anyone would complain about that. "I love books, but it's just stifling, sometimes."

"Then why don't you focus on the books you like, rather than complaining that you have too many?" snarked Leon's mother.

The young, drippy druid froze and stared at the woman he was walking with. There was shock in his eyes as well as something that wasn't quite as identifiable. Maybe it was awe. It could have been love, but it didn't look like the first time Gwen, his childhood friend, had stared at a girl, her heart showing through her eyes. He remembered the way she'd blushed when he'd asked her later about it. This didn't look the same.

The scene went white.

It cleared and he could see his mother's room. It was a great deal more cluttered than he remembered it, but the difference was probably proportional to her age.

His mother (it was so odd to call her 'Simona') came in through the front door carrying a tray with bread and a miscellaneous collection of fruit. She grinned at him – no, not him, Iseldir – and made her way over to him. It took Leon a bit to realize that he was sitting on the edge of her bed. He didn't really want to see this.

"Alright, Issie." She set the tray down on the bed. "I've got our snack now. And I beat you in dice earlier, so you owe me a kiss."

'I'm done,' Leon thought, trying to get his message across to adult Iseldir, who he could only hope was listening. 'I don't want to hear or see the rest of this. Please get me out of here. Stop making me watch my mom flirt with people.' He couldn't bear to say "flirt with you" no matter how accurate it was.

The situation went blank, much to Leon's relief, and the details of the new memories dripped in like ink on paper.

It was some odd mix-and-match game of Camelot and druidic marriage rites. He lost track of the details as he tried to follow who and what was present. He only recognized a handful of the people there. Some were indisputably his grandparents and extended maternal family. He recognized a couple of his great aunts and uncles. Others looked rough and wild as if they hadn't been to so much as a village in decades.

Leon marked them down as Iseldir's family.

It was a pleasant ceremony, if a bit strained between the two halves of the audience, but Leon didn't really want to watch it. It felt weird to see his mother's marriage, and downright freaky to be witnessing it as the person marrying her. He never wanted to do this again.

The audience stood up to clap or catch flowers or something, Leon didn't know exactly what, and the sound of the memory disappeared. The edges of his vision faded to an unrecognizable static. Was this just what happened at weddings? Leon had never been to one before. He had, as a matter of fact, deliberately avoided them. He would probably go to Gwen's, if she ever settled down with a girl (he knew that if she ever ended up marrying a bloke it wouldn't have been because she'd really wanted to), and he guessed he would attend the wedding of Arthur, if for no reason other than he wouldn't have any other choice. He just didn't understand the desire to get married, not to mention do anything beyond that.

However, as the family members in attendance disappeared into an unnatural fog, he decided that this was certainly something wrong with Iseldir's memory, not the odd traditions of people who had chosen to attend a pointless ceremony.

He needed to get out. Fast.

Leon tried to move, which he knew was silly based on how things had gone so far, but it seemed to work. He didn't take the young groom along for the ride with him, and it was simultaneously disorienting and relieving to see the young body of the man who was certainly, without a doubt, his father. Not that he really wanted to think about that.

He tried to pull himself back out of Iseldir's memories. Now that he wasn't seeing things from his father's point of view, he was probably halfway there, if he had to guess.

But he had no idea how to get the rest of the way to reality.

He tried to picture the clearing in his mind, which did nothing. He wasn't the person controlling the situation and he couldn't change it.

Leon knew he couldn't change anything. He knew he had absolutely no power over his issue. But he refused to accept that there was absolutely nothing he could do.

Then, suddenly and without warning, his vision went white.

––––––

"...do you mean why?!" Merlin's voice bellowed. "He's thrashing around on the ground, you idiot!"

Leon's vision cleared and he realized that he'd toppled off the log he'd been sitting on. He could just see Iseldir, his father, by the gods, restrained with vines and held against a tree.

He couldn't hear his father's answer, but Merlin responded, so he must have said something.

"Show him your memories? Are you insane?! That never works, and given how he reacted it's possible that you've permanently damaged his brain!" Leon couldn't quite bring himself to disagree. He didn't know if he'd be able to move or even talk. There was something off about the whole exchange but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

"No, shut up! I don't want to hear it." There was the sound of steps on grass that got louder until Leon could see Merlin. He looked angry beyond anything that Leon had ever seen, except maybe over something that had to do with Arthur. He crouched down and reached forward like Iseldir had when he had shared his memories. Then they made eye contact, and Merlin scrambled backward.

"Oh, Leon, you're..." His eyes shifted back and forth as if he was looking for a way out. "You're awake. That's good to hear. I was very worried about that. I didn't expect you to be up for, well, for at least a couple more minutes. I, uh..." He took exaggerated breaths as if he was trying to calm himself down. "How are you feeling?"

Leon opened his mouth, something that he would never take for granted again, but he couldn't quite get his voice to work. Merlin waited, curled in a ball, for him to speak.

"I'm very confused," he managed at last. The prince's manservant didn't look very reassured to hear that.

"Right, of course." Merlin looped his arm under Leon's and pulled him up by his armpits. "Let's get you back to Camelot now."

Leon wanted to push away, to stand on his own, to have time to process everything. Something was off. Worse, some part of him knew what it was, but it wasn't the part that was conscious. So he let Merlin carry him back to the grate, through the halls, and all the way up to Gaius' quarters. He wanted to talk to his father. He doubted he would ever see him again, but he wanted to know more about everything.

He just couldn't do that until he regained control of his body.

––––––

Merlin was avoiding him. Of that much, he was certain.

It was almost a month since the Knights of the Round Table (plus Gaius, Gwen, and Merlin) had reclaimed the citadel from Morgana and her undead army, and they hadn't ever been in the same room together for more five minutes, unless it was a council meeting. Leon understood that he was busy – they all were – but Merlin was making something of a special effort to stay out of Leon's way.

Leon had recovered fairly easily, which was a blessing because it had only been a couple days later that Morgana had invaded. He had also figured out mostly what happened in the clearing with his father.

Merlin had magic.

He had to.

There wasn’t another explanation.

The vines in the clearing, the lucky incidents on patrols, the way that Morgana’s immortal army had combusted suddenly when Merlin and Lancelot clearly weren’t taking out the bell... Nothing else made sense.

Leon didn’t know what he was going to do with what he knew. It was clear that Merlin was doing nothing but help Camelot, but the law was as clear as it had ever been. Then again, it wouldn’t be the first time that Leon had ignored it in favor of keeping someone alive. He’d betrayed it to keep his father safe, and he hardly knew him despite the weeks he’d spent trying to learn more about him. But Merlin was a member of the royal household and had proven himself, time and time again, to be loyal beyond the obligations of his job. If nothing else, it would be rude to out him as a sorcerous criminal, and probably not worth the time he would have to spend convincing Arthur of his claim.

Now that things around the kingdom had quieted down to such a level that enabled peacefully lounging about, Leon found himself wandering through the hallways of the castle, flipping idly through books of lineage and history.

He’d found definite proof of Iseldir’s claim in a dusty, half-burned book that seemed to have been abandoned decades ago. It was undoubtedly written before Leon had been born, given how it still openly mentioned the use of magic in one family history or another because so-and-so’s aunt had been a High Priestess and whomever-else was born of magic, and a few people lost to time were bound together with magic, leading them always to each other. Leon rather thought that the stories of “undying” or “destined” love were really just a load of hooey, but the people around him never appreciated him saying so, so he just kept quiet.

The book did indeed mention a druidic heir to a major clan marrying Lady Guannes, which matched Iseldir’s story. It neglected a name, but did have initials and two messy signatures, which Leon supposed would have to do. The groom’s signature did LOOK like it could be ‘Iseldir’ but then again, it was scribbly enough that it could look like anything at all.

Leon grinned to himself and muttered, “Shapeshifter signature,” before turning the page to look over the details of the wedding.

Everything lined up with the memories that Iseldir had shown him, from the gaping divide between the druids in attendance and the nobles to the oddly arena-shaped place to get married in. The book claimed it to be a ruined amphitheater left over from the Romans, but Leon couldn’t remember enough about the Romans to think accurately about whether or not it was complete and total hogwash. The bizarre static was left unmentioned, but that was to be expected.

After he put it away, Leon considered what to do next. Sure, he had proof of Iseldir being his father, but what could he do with that? He probably couldn't find Iseldir again, even if he tried, so what was the point of looking for more information?

And he knew the answer.

He'd never known anything about his father. And now that Iseldir had revealed himself, he had a source of information. More than that, he literally had his father to ask! No matter that Iseldir was a druid and drippy and sometimes a bit shadier than Leon would have liked, he was conclusively Leon's father.

That didn't change that he didn't know even where to look for Iseldir.

But he could ask someone who did.

Leaving the library, he lurked in an alcove that Merlin was known to pass by frequently. Sure enough, Merlin strolled by casually, a sort of vacant smile languishing on his face. Leon snapped his hand out, grabbed Merlin's upper arm, and yanked him into the alcove.

"What—!" Merlin's face went through a few expressions in even fewer seconds, from irritation to fear to a forced smile. "Leon! Hi. We've so little of each other recently. How's it going?"

"Merlin, cut the bullshit. I need your help." Merlin edged his way into the wall at his back, smiling tremulously.

"O—oh?" His eyes shifted from side to side. "Wouldn't, I don't know, Percival or Lancelot or someone be better at whatever you need? I'm not exactly a knight."

"No, but you do have magic, and you know about my father. You're the only person in the castle that fits that criteria." Leon let go of Merlin and held his hands up, hoping Merlin would know that he had no intention to coerce him. "That's it. I want your help in finding him. Because I want... answers."

Merlin opened and closed his mouth a few times, giving Leon the distinct impression of a goldfish his mother used to have. At last, he seemed to settle on, "You won't tell Arthur?"

Leon sighed. “No, I won’t tell the Prince Regent. I think that you should, but I guess that’s up to you. Will you help?”

Merlin bit his lip. “Yes.”

"Wonderful, Merlin!" He clapped Merlin on the shoulder. "Come along."

He led Merlin through the halls, dodging servants and courtiers as they went. Merlin was staring at him whenever he looked back with a comically bewildered look on his face. Leon almost felt guilty for scaring the living daylights out of the poor servant, but it was ridiculous to keep avoiding each other like they were. They worked in the same castle, they couldn't just stop talking.

"So, uh, Leon?" Leon looked back at Merlin, who hastily corrected himself. "Sir Leon. Where are we going?"

Leon's heart sunk. He hadn't meant to make Merlin afraid of him. “Just to my room. We won’t have trouble with people barging in there. At least, I assume you’d like to avoid anyone other than myself witnessing the use of your magic. Yes?”

The poor servant nodded mutely, his eyes wide. Leon sighed. “Well, do you have a better idea of where to go?”

“I– what?” Merlin tugged he wrist a bit, but his heart wasn’t in it. “Do I, er— sure. I guess. We can always go into the caverns, now that–“ He cut himself off with the look of someone who was very relieved they’d just managed to avoid certain death. “I just mean, it’s empty. And far more secure than your room.”

“Fine then, sounds perfect.” The two of them stopped dead in the middle of the hall, Leon looking back and forth between two hallways. “How do we get there?”

Without answering, Merlin pulled him in the opposite direction. They wound their way through the halls and down stairwell after stairwell. After a few minutes of this, Merlin veered off the well-trod paths of the castle and towards the dungeons. They came upon the guards, and Leon was struck with the sudden realization that they were almost exactly where Leon had first happened on Merlin and the sorcerous manservant had first become involved in the whole mess. Maybe Merlin had been going down into the caverns that night all those weeks ago.

“What used to be down here, Merlin?”

Merlin— the sorcerer, Leon reminded himself— gave a little jolt and started playing with the hem of his shirt. He looked over his shoulder at the guards, but they were nearly out of sight and definitely out of hearing range. With a sigh, Merlin nodded towards Leon in a sort of silent promise that he’d answer. “I’m sorry about all of this,” he prefaced. “I’m not all that used to this, to being honest with someone. At least not about, um, you know.” He waggled his fingers, unwilling to say the word ‘magic’ aloud. They came to the top of deep, stone steps that had no lights past about the twenty-foot mark, where weak torches flickered. “Ah, do you mind if I...” he waggled his fingers again.

“No, not at all,” said Leon, as a liar does.

Merlin murmured something under his breath and a brilliant light flared under his eyelids at the same time a fire ignited in his palm.

Unbidden, the word “Amazing” came to Leon’s lips. Magic, peaceful, even friendly, magic was not something he saw often, if ever. But Merlin had control and power, something beautiful as much in magic as any knight who wielded their weapons well.

Merlin flashed Leon a nervous smile and set off down the stairs, the flame bobbing in his hand.

Leon shook his head fondly and followed him down.

“So, what was here? Why isn’t it here anymore?”

“It was, ah, you know.” Everything about Merlin seemed to shrink, including the flame. “A— a monster. Just another— another beast that you and the other knights would hunt down.”

Leon got the sense that this was not the full answer to his question.

They eventually got out of the dark, wet stairwell to a wide and dusty cavern, the contrasting spaces almost giving Leon whiplash. Moonlight squirmed through jagged cracks in a ceiling so far above him that he couldn’t even see it, but scars of light lay crookedly over the broken rocks of the cave floor. One of the last things he noticed, ironically, was the massive boulder rising out of the ground a few meters away from where he was standing. With a shudder, Leon noted the deep scores in the stone. It looked a great deal like a cat’s scratches on new furniture, but carved by something a thousand times larger and more dangerous than any cat could hope to be.

“Merlin,” he choked out, fear for Camelot dominating his mind, “tell me what was here right now. And then tell me— swear to me— that it’s dead.”

His eyes shifting nervously, Merlin ducked his head. “It may be easier to explain if I show you how he got out.” Without checking to see if Leon was following him, Merlin trudged down a well-hidden flight of stairs to the back of the boulder. He nudged a heavy chain with his foot and indicated the snapped link despondently. “It was the dragon, Sir Leon. Uther kept the Great Dragon here. He had a name. It was Kilgharrah, if you cared to learn it.”

“And it’s dead?”

Merlin’s eyes slid from side to side again, as if he was scared of being caught. “Kilgharrah cannot hurt Camelot.”

Merlin, Leon concluded, was not going to give a straight answer, even if the question was one with seemingly two options. But that was sorcerers, wasn’t it? All of them spoke with twisting riddles that dodged any attempt to make sense of them.

Leon sighed and leaned against the rock. “That’s good enough, I suppose. Now, can you help me find my father? That is what I wanted to ask in the first place, though we got a little side-tracked.”

“I imagine I can,” Merlin replied, still with that hedging manner of sorcerers. “He left his mark on you with that memory spell a month ago. It’s not intentional, mind, just an effect of casting magic on someone else. Still, I think it’s as good as anything else for scrying. Combined with his blood— that’d be you— this should be easy. Child’s play.”

They sat down in the dust that the Great Dragon had scraped off the rock that served as his prison for twenty-and-some years, a few massive scales decorating the ledge. Merlin tentatively rested one hand on Leon’s shoulder, constantly glancing back at Leon’s face to gauge whether or not it was okay, and waited for Leon’s grim go-ahead to let the first pulse of magic surge into Leon’s arm.

It’d ached a bit ever since the fight with the immortal army and his elbow had a bruise on it, but both vanished in the wake of Merlin.

“Are you sure about this?” asked Merlin shyly. It hit Leon suddenly just how much he was asking of Merlin, and what they were both risking.

He nodded.

“As long as you are.”

“Okay then,” breathed Merlin, and he pressed his palm to Leon’s forehead.

In a blink, Leon wasn’t.

It wasn’t just that he was outside of his body, or that he now pondering something with unprecedented intensity. His body felt disconnected, perhaps deleted was a better word, and he was just a collection of foggy memories and sharp thoughts that cut through them like his sword through cloth. Snippets of conversation from the other knights drifted through his brain in friendly affection. The vow he’d taken when he’d been knighted echoed through the expanse of his mind. Gwen’s undying promise to be his friend, made at the tender age of twelve, wove its way around other memories, corralling them into a whirlwind that only grew.

Merlin’s voice, steady and calm like the eye of a storm, broke through the clouds of the rest of Leon’s mind.

“Leon,” he rumbled, “Do you hear me?”

_I do._

“Ah, that’s a quiet mind you’ve got there. Can you still your thoughts for me? It will make it easier, if you please.” Merlin’s voice acted like the rewind button on a rainstorm over a lake, making ripples vanish as Leon’s thoughts stilled. Only a strong hum was left, and Leon almost felt as though he’d just opened a door for Merlin to a very private place.

 _You won’t go through_ all _my memories, will you?_ Leon asked worriedly. _Somethings are... Private, you understand? Please only look at what you need._

Merlin would’ve sounded offended if it weren’t for the probably magical unflappable-ness that blanketed his every word. “Of course, Leon. We’re friends, aren’t we? I wouldn’t betray your trust like that or take advantage of you.”

_How chivalrous of you. You’d make a good knight, you know._

Merlin snorted. “Have you seen me with a sword? I’m as much a hazard to my friends as too my enemies.”

_Well, maybe not in that respect. But you’ve got the heart for it. And if Arthur comes to terms with it, your magic would be a valuable asset that might make up for your lack of secular skill._

Merlin only laughed and set to finding Iseldir’s magic mark.

He found it fairly quickly once Leon hushed and pulled out of Leon’s mind as fast as he could so he could cast his scrying spell in the comfort of his own body. Leon clambered back into his body, readjusting to being stuffed into a sack of restrictive meat. It felt noticeably smaller than the daunting infinity his mind had soared through without the limits of his limbs.

Leon had, at this point, a great deal more experience with out-of-body experiences than he’d ever thought he would and could sensibly compare the two.

Merlin’s magic was careful, almost surgical, likely Gaius’s influence given how incongruous that was with the rest of him. He gave Leon a glimpse of the unlimited potential of the uninhibited human brain, all while guiding Leon through the process as if he’d done it a thousand times.

Iseldir’s memory spell had felt sloppy by comparison. Every movement of the alien body he’d been forced into was jarring and nauseating. The vision was, if possible, more limited than Leon’s own, a miracle in and of itself. Iseldir had never seemed to do such things before, his power like a flawed gem that still rested in the matrix rather than being excavated.

Leon rubbed at his arms, trying to regain feeling in them.

How quickly things changed. Not half an hour ago, Leon had thought that magic was, at best, a necessary evil and a tool in the same way a plague was a medicine at worst. Now, he was marveling at the beauty of it as if it was an exotic butterfly or ornate sword.

There’s a first time for everything.

“I’ve got him,” murmured Merlin, ripping Leon from his thoughts.

“Where? What’s he doing?”

“Watching over some druid children,” Merlin replied distantly. “He’s telling them stories about the golden knight from Camelot.”

“Ah, Arthur has his admirers even among the druids, does he?”

“No, Leon. Your father is telling stories about _you._ Memory sharing is a two-way street, as most mental spells are. He got a few of your exploits as he sent you down his memory lane.” Merlin smiled. “He sounds proud, in spite of the fact of who you work for. He’s proud of your loyalty to your ideals and your people, proud of your bravery to do what you think is right and stand against evil, proud of who you are. You can hear it in his voice.”

Merlin mercifully ignored the tears slipping out of Leon’s eyes, or maybe he was just unable to see them through the spell.

Leon had never had a father to be proud of him, before.

“He’s... he’s in the caves to the West,” declared Merlin after a second. “You could set out today for the caves if you wanted. You know where they are, right?”

“I do,” Leon agreed, though hesitation dragged his fantasies of Iseldir being the father that other lords’ sons had to a halt. “Though... I don’t know that I need to.”

Merlin’s eyes stopped glowing abruptly. “Why not?”

“Well, it’s just that, how to put it?” Leon ran his fingers through the grit on the ledge. “He’s my father, for sure. But he’s not really anyone I know, I suppose. I’m glad to know of him, but...” Would Merlin understand how his spell had reminded Leon of everything that tied him to Camelot? Leon wouldn’t count on it. “It doesn’t matter as much as this, as much as Camelot and everything— everyone— in it. I’ll welcome him if we cross paths, but you, Merlin, and the rest of Camelot will remain my priority. Arthur will remain my priority.”

Merlin beamed.

“In that, we are aligned,” he swore, as if it was an ancient oath finding itself on his tongue. “Your values are ones I’ll bear upon my own back.”

Words, honest and powerful, forced their way through Leon’s throat. “And yours upon mine.”

The vows joined the two of them in a bound camaraderie, stronger than blood and branded on their hearts. Merlin helped Leon to his feet, and Leon could feel the rush of now-familiar magic through his very being, almost clapping him on the back the way Arthur or Gwaine did.

Oh, yes. Merlin would make a very good knight indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please comment if you liked it. I'm waffling between leaving this and writing a second chapter, so I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.


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